The sandmen had shifted their strategy from hypnotizing to good old-fashioned pushing. Jax joined the crush, trying to ram his shoulder between two onlookers to open up a pathway. He bounced right off them.
Mrs. Douglas’s high-pitched voice penetrated the farthest corners of the space. “I’m proud to introduce the man I love, the man all of America will soon love. My husband and our next president, Trey Douglas!”
And there he was, Elias Mako’s puppet, Senator Trey Douglas, greeting his supporters with his double-white smile and thirty-two teeth prominently displayed. The crowd erupted into insanity. Confetti fluttered and balloons dropped from the ceiling. A brass band blared out some obscure college-football fight song, but nobody could hear it anyway. The din was nothing short of earsplitting.
Unable to move a single inch forward, Jax leaped as high as he could in a futile attempt to capture Douglas’s attention. At last, he hoisted himself up on the shoulders of two of the sandmen.
“Senator — over here!”
It was no use. Douglas was hugging his wife and sons, shaking hands, always looking in the wrong direction.
“Senator!”
And suddenly, the nominee’s eyes drifted over to the boy who was above the crowd.
Jax’s heart surged. This is it! But before he could lock on, a tall, lean body stepped in front of the candidate and glared out over the sea of faces.
Mako!
Jax dropped back to the floor, rebuffed. The enemy knew he was here, and would guard Douglas with his full arsenal of hypnotic tricks. There was no way for Jax to fight back. The Sentia director was too experienced and too strong.
How am I going to bend Douglas now?
The taste of defeat was bitter in his mouth. It was over. The candidate was already stepping up to the podium. In another minute, the combined power of every Opus and Sparks who’d ever lived wouldn’t be enough to reach the guy. His focus would be strictly on the teleprompter.
You can’t very well hypnotize someone who isn’t looking at you.
Unless …
Suddenly, Jax was on the go again — not forward, but sideways through the crowd.
“Come back, man!” Durbin shouted over the noise. “There’s still a chance!”
Jax was already committed to this new course of action. There was no way he could get close enough to the stage in time. Yet maybe, just maybe, he could make it to the tech station at the side of the ballroom. It housed the main switchboard that controlled lights and sound. Jax wasn’t interested in those features. His destination was the computer that fed the teleprompter on the podium.
Lateral movement — away from the stage — was a lot easier than trying to bull forward. He caught a bewildered look from Braintree, but pushed on. There was no time for explanations. Ducking low to avoid waving arms and signs, he burrowed through the revelers and slipped under the cordon that surrounded the control center.
“Hey, you’re not allowed —”
Jax turned his eyes on the man, silencing his protest. One by one, he mesmerized the technical crew. For most, it took no more than a piercing glance. For others, a simple command was required: “Stand back and do nothing.” To the woman at the computer, he said, “You have to go to the bathroom. It’s urgent.”
When she got up and ran, he took her chair.
“Thank you! Thank you very much!” Douglas was at the microphone. The ovation was dying down as the audience readied itself for the candidate’s words.
If Jax didn’t act now, it would be too late — for himself, his parents, maybe even the entire country.
He looked at the screen of the laptop and saw the words: MY FRIENDS, WE GATHER TONIGHT IN OUR NATION’S LARGEST CITY TO CELEBRATE THE BEGINNING OF A MOVEMENT THAT WILL BE FELT IN EVERY TOWN AND VILLAGE FROM SEA TO SHINING …
In a flash, Jax realized how the system functioned. Whatever was on the computer would be projected onto the teleprompter in front of the candidate. Right now, it was the nominee’s acceptance speech.
But not for long …
His finger trembling as it moved on the touchpad, Jax activated the laptop’s webcam and stared straight into the lens. He had no idea if this would work. Every mind-bender he’d ever known or studied had used speech to deliver mesmeric commands. He had no way to speak to his subject here. All he had was a keyboard.
Here goes nothing, he thought.
Standing at the podium, basking in the adoration of the crowd at the greatest moment in his political career, Senator Trey Douglas watched his speech disappear from the teleprompter. The words he had rehearsed so diligently were replaced by a huge pair of remarkable eyes, changing in color from green to blue to purple and back again. It confused him at first that at this vitally important point in his life, nothing should seem as urgent as looking into those eyes.
A long, narrow pop-up appeared below the face. A message crawled across the prompter:
And he was! Completely relaxed. He’d never been so completely at peace in his life, and it was all thanks to those wonderful eyes!
Another message appeared:
Onstage, Douglas squared his shoulders and nodded vigorously. It looked a little peculiar, but his ecstatic supporters assumed it was just the candidate being caught up in the excitement of the moment.
Seated at the computer in the tech booth, Jax was in complete control. After enduring a blur of hundreds of thousands of cascading images, now there was only one. He focused all his concentration on it, knowing that Douglas was completely in his hands. As he typed, he heard his words coming from the candidate himself over the public address system.
“My friends, thank you for this honor of being your candidate for president of the United States. Unfortunately, I’ve decided to drop out of the race….”
A titanic gasp sucked every molecule of air out of the ballroom. The silence that followed was so total that it would have been possible to hear the six footsteps of an ant walking across the floor.
Onstage behind the senator, Elias Mako leaped to his feet, his face a mask of shock and horror. Past Douglas’s left ear, he spotted Jackson Opus’s unique eyes staring out of the teleprompter. His fevered brain toyed briefly with the idea of hypnotizing Douglas back to himself and trying to pass the episode off as a joke. But he knew in his heart it wouldn’t wash. This “speech” was being beamed around the world over dozens of TV and radio networks, the Internet, and every form of social media. This disaster was only a handful of seconds old, yet it was already too late.
His vision clouded by rage, he fixed his gaze on the tech station and saw exactly the person he expected to see. The sole person capable of accomplishing this act of remote hypnotism. The one Mako himself had shown how it could be done!
“I hope you’re not too bummed about this,” the former candidate went on in an apologetic tone, “but I guess you’re going to have to nominate somebody else. Bye.”
Typing furiously, Jax gave his final instruction:
And he yanked the power cord out of the floor outlet.
Douglas stepped back from the podium and turned to his good friend and supporter, Dr. Mako. “Well, how did I do?”
In the dead silence, his words could be heard in every corner of the ballroom. They didn’t seem to make sense.
The quiet lasted a grand total of eight seconds. Then, mayhem. The camera flashes were blinding, the babble of shouted questions just an unintelligible din. Every reporter in the hotel made a bull run for the ex-candidate, determined to score the scoop of the century. The traffic jam was unimaginable — media swarming and devastated campaign workers screaming “Why? Why? Why?” Shoving matches broke out; punches were thrown; the sandmen circulated through the chaos helping themselves to wallets and handbags faster than Axel Braintree could stop them. The old man was outnumbered, and his flock was in a feeding frenzy.
In all the disorder, Jax came face-to-face with Elias Mako.
The director was in a towering rage. His crimson face radiated heat. “Ther
e will be payback!” he spat, tight-lipped.
“Jax!” came a voice behind them.
Jax wheeled. Talk about bad timing. His parents were pushing their way toward him, Lolis and Marcinko struggling to keep up. He should have known this would happen. There was no way Mom and Dad would cool their heels outside with a riot going on and Jax in the middle of it.
“Get out of here!” Jax ordered, waving them away.
It was too late. Mako had spotted them. “Now you’ll see that actions have consequences!” He spun in their direction and hurled a single word. “Lusitania!”
There was no reaction from the Opuses.
Mako must have believed that they simply hadn’t heard him amid the ruckus. He jumped back onstage, rushed to the microphone, and shouted, “Lusitania!” The ballroom echoed with his command.
Mrs. Opus frowned. “What’s he yelling about?”
Jax saw red. Yes, the post-hypnotic suggestion had been defused. But Mako didn’t know that!
He’s trying to murder them for revenge!
In a rage, he turned his powerful eyes on Mako. He had no idea what he intended to do — hypnotize him? Punch him? Curse him out? All of the above? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see beyond the fact that his hatred of this evil man had to take some form.
Too late he realized that he had let his mind wander, and by the time he returned to focus, he was under attack. It was no mere stirring in the brain, but powerful robot arms tearing into his innermost thoughts.
Desperately, Jax tried to muster his defenses against the assault, only to understand that he was completely outgunned. Days of debilitating blowback had weakened him, and the teleprompter-bending of Trey Douglas had sapped what little hypnotic power he had left. There was no defending against an adversary with the skill and experience of Sentia’s director.
Mako stepped down from the rostrum and approached slowly, his expression intense, yet calm.
Fight back, Jax exhorted himself. You’re stronger than he is! You can keep him out!
A calm voice very close by said, “Why would you resist? It’s so much more pleasant to let yourself go.”
Never!
“You are very relaxed … very comfortable….”
No!
A moment later, Jax couldn’t understand what he was so upset about. He was fine. Come to think of it, he’d never felt better in his life. Energized, well rested — happy, even. The remnants of his deluge of hypnotic blowback were gone. In fact, he could barely remember the weeklong onslaught … a vague recollection of something disagreeable in the very distant past … What was it again … ?
“Isn’t this nice?” asked Mako.
“Mmm,” Jax murmured, “great.” Why would anyone resist something so wonderful? What had he been thinking? Jax couldn’t imagine fighting against this bliss. All that mattered was to keep it going….
“This glorious feeling can be with you always,” Mako promised, and Jax knew in his heart that it was 100 percent true. “But there’s something important you have to do first.”
“Of course,” Jax promised aloud. “Anything.”
“Now listen carefully….”
In the middle of the roiling crowd, Axel Braintree snatched the phone from the friar’s hand and dropped it into its real owner’s pocket.
“Have a heart, Axel! The pickings haven’t been this good since the Yankees’ last ticker-tape parade!”
“Control yourself, Tuck,” Braintree hissed. “Do you want to go back on house arrest?”
“Kiyoko’s got more stuff than me. How come you’re not giving her a hard time?”
Sure enough, there was another sandman a few yards away, digging inside someone’s backpack.
Braintree rushed off, sternly tossing over his shoulder, “I’m not finished with you yet!” What a night! Obviously, he was thrilled that they’d managed to thwart Mako’s plan to place a puppet president in the Oval Office. But who could have predicted that his sandmen would go wild in a crowd so big? This represented months of progress down the drain! It was going to be hard to get them back to the Laundromat for more meetings. He might have to bring back Donut Night after all….
He had almost reached Kiyoko when Evelyn Lolis grabbed him by the arm. “I’m worried about the boy,” she called over the noise of the crowd.
He followed her pointing finger. There was Jax, making his way to the door, striding purposefully.
“He’s probably taking a bathroom break,” Braintree told her. “He’s earned it. He just saved the world, you know.”
Lolis shook her head. “He’s coming off a face-to-face with Mako. I think he’s bent.”
The old man was instantly alert. Jax had thrown a monkey wrench into the Sentia director’s greatest ambitions. His revenge would be terrible.
Showing remarkable agility for a man his age, Braintree darted through the milling throng and followed Jax out to the hotel atrium.
“Wait up, kid!” he called. Louder: “Jax, you did it!”
Jax gave no sign that he’d heard, although the words echoed around the fourteen-story lobby. He continued to cross the atrium with long, determined strides.
The old man broke into a run. The crowd was thinner here. All the action was inside the ballroom.
The Opuses appeared in the entranceway. “Jax?” his mother called. “Where are you going?”
There was no response. Jax stepped inside the chrome-and-glass elevator, pressed what seemed to be the top button, and turned to face front as the doors closed. He stared forward, looking right through Braintree and, beyond him, the Opuses, as if they weren’t even there.
The old man dashed back into the ballroom, ignoring a volley of questions from Jax’s bewildered parents. He stuck both forefingers into the sides of his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle that cut right through the raucous aftermath of the press conference. He was good at whistling, a skill he’d learned in prison.
It was the emergency signal. The sandmen knew he’d never use it unless the situation was dire. They came instantly, dropping what they were doing, and more than a few wallets.
Braintree spread his arms, gathering them into a huddle.
There wasn’t much time.
Through the spotless glass of the elevator, Jax watched the lobby fall away before him. How beautiful it was, he thought. He wasn’t usually the kind of kid who noticed stuff like that. But in his state of euphoria, the whole world was a diorama created just to dazzle him. The chrome accents glittered, and the vast drapery seemed to float rather than hang in the atrium, a colossal golden manta ray standing guard over the Hotel Galaxy. Jax was a part of this majestic ecosystem. The magnificent feeling would last forever if he did his part to keep it thriving. It seemed utterly fair and reasonable. In fact, he considered himself lucky to be included in the wonder. And it was all thanks to Dr. Elias Mako, who had devoted his life to New York City education and was an inspiration to every single one of us.
With a subtle chime, the car reached fourteen, the top floor of the atrium. Jax stepped out onto the mezzanine and peered over the rail to the lobby floor, nearly two hundred feet down. He could hardly wait to experience that distance, to float gracefully down, as if riding a cloud. Dr. Mako had suggested a swan dive, but had left the details entirely up to Jax.
He wasn’t much of a diver, but he was pretty sure he could manage to be graceful. He didn’t want to spoil something so perfect.
Jax swung a leg over the rail and raised both arms in a diver’s pose. This had to be exactly right. He might not ever get another chance….
Not since the night the Berlin Wall came down had so many hypnotists bent so many people in such a short period of time. Axel Braintree and the Sandman’s Guild raced around the ballroom, staring into faces and speaking urgently. Within seconds, an army of recruits poured out into the lobby.
In the rush, a few heads turned skyward. Cries of alarm rang out as spectators spied the tiny figure climbing over the rail fourteen stories up. But most
of the stampeders were mesmerized. They were utterly focused on the job at hand — nothing more, nothing less.
“This way!” Axel Braintree exploded from the midst of the crowd and led his surging army to the acres of billowing curtains that draped the front windows. Ruthlessly, the mob grasped at the golden hems.
A shriek was torn from Mrs. Opus as she recognized the small form poised to jump from great height.
“No!!!” bellowed her husband in horror.
And then Jackson Opus stepped out into thin air.
He dropped, genuinely astounded that he wasn’t floating. His desperate parents tried to rush forward in an illogical attempt to catch him or die trying. Jax spotted them for just a split second. But the next thing he knew, they disappeared, and something big and gold was in the way.
Braintree’s sandmen and their brigade of mesmerized civilians backed up across the lobby, stretching the silk curtain panels as taut as they could hold them. Jax fell forty feet, struck the fabric, and began to slide, his progress slowing as the angle of the drapery flattened out. Nearing the bottom, he went into a roll, bowled out three of his rescuers, and hit the floor. It was a hard landing, but not nearly as hard as the one Sentia’s director had planned for him.
His trance broken by the impact, he stared up at the circle of faces that surrounded him. “What —?” The last thing he remembered was standing opposite Dr. Mako in the aftermath of the press conference.
The crowd let go of the curtain, which swept like a wave back across the lobby. Through the receding panels burst the curious and the anxious. Most had missed the drama in the atrium, but it was becoming obvious that something had occurred here that was even more tumultuous than Trey Douglas’s unexpected withdrawal from the presidential race. In the lead sprinted Mom and Dad, wild with relief. Jax was nearly crushed in their embrace, and he was thrilled to be there. He was thrilled to be anywhere.